Samoa

Samoa is a group of islands located in the south pacific, approximately halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii. It consists of two main islands, Upolu and Savaii. Samoa is well-known for its natural beauty and landscape. Samoa is very much a tourist destination. Tourists are attracted to the strong commitment to sport, Samoan cuisine, Samoan lifestyle, natural attractions, and traditional aspects such as tattooing and ceremonial occasions. Although, on the contrary, Samoa has big disadvantages for being located in the pacific region as natural disasters are a reoccurrence in its history. The most recent being the 2009 Tsunami, killing approximately 200 people. The Samoan reputation has also recently become corrupted because of unsettling between Samoans and Tongans. Although this is news to Australians, this conflict between Samoa and Tonga has a long history behind it.

ReligionSamoa is mostly a Christian country. The law is very much based on Christian ethics and churches are located in every village. The most common denominations are EFKS, Mormonism, Catholicism and Assembly of God. Only recently are modern churches such as Pentecostal Christian churches and even Muslim. Religion is very much apart of Samoan culture, and practiced within the family unit.

Sport Samoans enjoy lots of sports, for example popular sports include volley ball, touch footy, cricket and rugby union. Samoans have had teams compete in the Commonwealth Games; they have won gold medals for weightlifting and bronze medal in athletics. Samoans also have a successful national rugby team, Manu Samoa, who won the Rugby Sevens last year.

Tattoos The traditional Samoan tattooing is called the pe’a, the body tattoo. Originally, the pe’a was only tattooed on those Samoans with a ‘matai’ title, which is a chief role where they are named representatives of their families or villages. So the ‘matai’ title was traditionally extremely respected within the Samoan culture....